Welcoming in the Year of the Dragon

It is very usual for Civiliz’d and Polite Nations to look upon all others as barbarous … Europe now being the seat of learning, and Science, wherein learned Academies are set up for the Discovery of Hidden Secrets in Nature, we take all the Rest of Mankind for meer Barbarians: But Those who have Travel’d into China and Japan, must confess those People far surpass us in the endowments, both of body and mind.

-Jean Crasset, 1705

 

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